Unsettling West-centrism in the study of professional service firms

Abstract

Over the last two decades, research on professional service firms has developed into an important subfield of management studies. In this article, I offer a postcolonial critique of this subfield. I show that it is not only built almost exclusively on studies conducted in the West but also generally presents its theorizing as though it were universal. This is despite the field being mostly focused on transnational firms. It is also despite professional service firm scholars generally being distinctly sensitive to (organizational) difference and having no steadfast commitment to positivism. Importantly, I also contend that professional service firm scholarship tends to construct an image of Western professionals as bearers of universal experience, knowledge and ‘professional’ culture while overlooking, if not obscuring, their role in neo-colonialism. Thus, what started as a useful effort to study an unusual – ‘professional’ – type of organization appears to have evolved into a West-centric scholarly enterprise. I urge scholars to recognize and interrogate the problem and work self-reflexively to address it in their own research – and I offer suggestions to that end. My contribution also has implications for the postcolonial critique in management studies and related efforts to decolonize the field.